Moonstone Quarry Times be hard

It was tough, life, it was always tough. FitzDutiful hadn't left the pack lands in a long, long, long time and when he had it was to bring war down upon his pack, or nearly cause a war, or whatever was going on. Anyway, it was tough. He wanted to just roll back time and claim Neverwinter Forest when he had chosen the mountain, but that wasn't really a solution - nor would it have solved anything at all. Likelihood was that he would be in the reverse of the position he was now.

Still, he felt the desire to improve upon his guardian skills but also wanted to pay a visit to @Charon at Moonspear, it had been a long time since he had seen that boy and he wondered why he had left the Bay behind in the first place; had a similar event occurred? All these questions echoed in his mind and he walked through the quarry - a route that let him avoid Neverwinter completely.

It'd been some time since Charon had last visited Moonstone Quarry. He remembered it fondly, however, as he had been here with Atreyu and they had explored, back when Charon was still on te lookout for new pack territories. He wasn't sure why he visited it today, but he was eager to get out of pack territories, even though they offered him all that pleased him. Life had been treating him well lately, bar the unfortunate run-in with Osprey and Mason earlier. From his budding romance with Amekaze to how well the pack was flourishing was enough to keep him satisfied at home.

FitzDutiful's appearing silhouette in the distance was no unwelcome sight either, however. It'd been a long time since they had last spoken, and Charon had done a lot of growing — not in size, perhaps, but into his role of Alpha, amongst others, certainly — and he wondered how Silvertip was doing. Of course, he'd heard a thing or two already from Mason, but Fitz seemed a much more reliable source, anyway. "Fancy meeting you here," Charon said casually with a grin on his face as he approached FitzDutiful, who seemed lost in thoughts.

FitzDutiful was very lost in his thoughts as so his started when his thoughts appeared to have mystically summoned the very one he had been thinking about. "Hi!" he exclaimed with a smile to match the grin he was given. He almost thought of Charon as a second son, would have if they had been in a pack together; he knew nothing of the relationships Mason and Charon were developing - or lack thereof.

"I was just thinking of you" he paused for a moment, almost looking unsure, before continuing with what he wanted to say. Now wasn't the time for dancing around the subject. "I was actually coming to see you to ask you something. I was wondering why you moved from the Bay instead of staying there?" He knew the entire pack had gone with him but he didn't know why they had sought out new lands. Not that he could recall being told anyway; almost fearfully he hoped it had been some kind of altercation too.

It surprised Charon that FitzDutiful had just been thinking about him, and for a split second he wondered if it was because of the lessons that he'd taught Mason. The smile on Fitz' face made it clear that was unlikely, however; not unless he wanted to thank Charon for putting his haughty son in place, at least. No, Charon guessed it was for other reasons. He wondered if it had anything to do with Mason's request, but if it did, then Fitz was going to dance around the subject for the moment. When he opened his mouth unexpected questions arose; were those really the sort of questions that would drive an Alpha to cross several territories to come see another Alpha?

Charon answered, however, figuring that he'd get his answers sooner or later. "Amekaze likes mountains, and it seemed unfair to ask her and her wolves to come live with us. I wouldn't have wanted that for my wolves either, so when we decided to merge our packs together we picked a new place." Charon was happy for the choice, really, even though he sometimes missed Stavanger Bay. Moonspear was much more befitting of a wolf of his stature. He went on to explain, "And it worked out well that way. The Bay was a great place to grow up and I sometimes miss the coast, but a mountain as tall as Moonspear is more fitting for me and Ame." A confident smile traced along his lips, unable to hide how happy he had been recently. The same didn't go for Fitz, Charon already knew after Mason's request for help, but Charon couldn't help but wear the happiness he felt ever since he'd gotten close with Ame on his sleeve. He had only one return question: "Why do you ask? Thinking of moving?"

Charon answered his questions, without any prior questions of his own. FitzDutiful was glad to know that they had the kind of friendship where these questions could be asked without any judgement or ruthlessness. It was good to know he had one friend, even if his son was apparently mucking things up! If only FitzDutiful had known what was going down it might have inspired him to trade his naturalist trade for the counsellor one all over again!

FitzDutiful cocked his head slightly on one side at the way Charon smiled about his and Amekaze - it seemed things were going well between them and if they weren't mates already then FitzDutiful saw it happening before much longer. He wondered briefly about the male's age and whether pups were in the future of the two of them. But he avoided asking any such things and decided to be open with the alpha of Moonspear about what was going on.

He looked around to make sure they were alone before carrying on.

"We might be forced to. Zaria is pregnant, but a pack has moved into Neverwinter Forest. We didn't get off to the best of starts and I'm very aware that was my fault for not respecting their very new, incomplete, borders. Still, I'm just wary of having a pack so close to our borders. We have plenty of food without needing the forest but still..." He let his words trail off. He hadn't intended to take the blame for what had occurred but it seemed he had anyway.

Charon felt upset when Fitz said that his pack and family might be forced to leave because of the Neverwinter wolves. Did he have to kick Fitz in the behind, too?! Charon would never allow anyone to kick him off his mountain and if it was him, he would rather have killed every single one of the wolves settling so close before letting it happen. Of course, he would not share this so readily with Fitz, especially not undiluted, for he knew his opinion could be course and anyway, Flóki had seemed to get along with this Eshe of Neverwinter forest so he didn't want to start a massacre on some random wolves he didn't even know were cool or not.

"I can imagine it sucks, I wouldn't tolerate anyone settling right next to Moonspear," Charon said after he filtered out his irritation. "But now that they've nearly settled, I'm not sure you can do much about it anymore. Not sure if moving away is better though, it seems packs've been popping up all over the place. My outriders've reported of other packs, too." There was little space left. "You could either play nice and accept things as they are, if you've got enough food and worry for your pups, or fight. Or prepare, in case you need to fight in the future." That's what Charon'd do. Either play nice and prepare training and more wolves for future eradication, or fight now. Or decide that he was cool with having neighbours, but if it'd happen now, he knew that was no option for him and he would make them leave the good or the bad way.

There were always choices, but it seemed that after all that had transpired Fitz was left with only the poor ones. Charon did not envy him.

Sorry you had to wait so long for such a small poopy reply!!

With a sigh, FitzDutiful nodded - it seemed everywhere he went people were saying the same thing and it was probably past time that he just accepted there was nothing to be done and he had to leave it as such. "Well we have food - else we wouldn't have settled where we are. We have other forests too if we want a change on the menu. I just wished they'd come to say something to us first rather than me finding out by smelling their borders. Y'know?"

A change of topic was what he needed; a change of scenery. He glanced around them looking at where they were and taking in the different landscape - so differed to what he was used to training on. "Fancy a spar? I could do with some out-of-the-pack practice." He looked hopefully towards his friend, his tail wagging every so slightly in anticipation.

nah, it's fine <3

"Yeah, I get it," said Charon; he would be outraged to find such a thing and he might've called the full strength of his pack right then and there had it happened to him.

Fitz asked him for a spar, and Charon agreed with a nod. "Sure. I could use some practise." He had sparred much lately, with Flóki and Amekaze amongst others, but it would be good, like Fitz had said, to practise with someone outside of the pack.

Charon bowed down to the ground with his rump and batted the earth with a paw, inviting -- challenging -- Fitz to make the first move.

Charon agreed to a spar and signalled for FitzDutiful to make the first move. With a tense but sly smile, he began slowly pacing from one side to side as he assessed his opponent, letting the thought of the Neverwinter pack fade into the background.

The white male had grown since they first met, featuring adult height that was almost the same as his greyer opponent the main difference that Charon bore the scars of a previous encounter whereas FitzDutiful had no visual signs of his experience. At three years old, FitzDutiful had well developed muscles and he suspected Charon's youth would mean FitzDutiful had a strength advantage.

He decided to play that advantage.

With only the small flick of his tail to indicate he was about to stop pacing, FitzDutiful pounced for Charon's left side, attempting to knock the younger man onto the floor. He suspected some counter attack, Charon hadn't got those scars without being able to fight, but it was worth testing out an easy victory!

When Fitz finally made his move, he tried to come right at Charon to knock him over. Charon was quick to dash to the side to avoid the attack, hoping to use his speed (in much the same way that Fitz likely tried using his strength) as his advantageous feature. A playful growl rumbled in Charon's throat as he dashed sideways and instantly he tried to nip at Fitz' shoulder in challenge before darting away to the side again.

Charon nipped in and caught FitzDutiful's shoulder. If Fitz had been at full strength the attack wouldn't have hit but a headache assaulted FitzDutiful like you wouldn't believe. His eyes were suddenly sensitive to the light and he roared in an instant of agony.

"I'm sorry!" he yelled, too loud for the situation at hand, and took off running for the mountain at full speed. He couldn't run straight, though, and kept veering off to one side and then the other. In this zig zagging form he would just make it to safety where he'd find the closest cave and hide from the bright daylight until the sensitivity and pain went away.

Their spar was caught short when suddenly Fitz seemed really angry or pained or... something. Charon's eyes widened and he was about to ask Fitz if there was anything he could do when Fitz roared a 'sorry' and started running off. Charon glanced after him, staring for a while until he eventually returned home, feeling confused but shedding the happenings off him for the moment.